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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Big Game Gets Big Love

I love getting emails with good news. Senator
Jon Tester sent out a note yesterday that his Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is likely
to come up for a vote next week. That’s fantastic news if you hunt and fish and want Congress to actually do something productive instead of argue about who
gets to sit at what table while the U.S. lists crazily along.

The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is a
conglomeration of about 20 bills that focus on important issues that Sportsmen and Sportswomen in the United States face
today.

The bill that are included in the Sportsmen's Act of 2012 enjoy broad support from within the hunting and angling community and is supported by Ducks Unlimited, the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Boone and Crockett. Pieces of it have already passed either the House or the Senate independently, but packaged together, the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 does more to increase access to public lands, conserve critical wildlife habitat, and reauthorize conservation funding than anything Congress has done in a long, long while.

According to the
materials sent out, here’s the list of provisions encapsulated under the Senator's big
banner:

Hunting, Fishing and Recreational Access

Making Public Lands Public Act: This
section requires that the 1.5% of annual LWCF funding is made available to
secure, through rights-of-way, or the acquisition of lands, or interests from
willing sellers, recreational public access to existing federal public lands
that have significantly restricted access to hunting, fishing, and other
recreational purposes. Access is the number one issue for Sportsmen. Finding
places to recreate and the loss of access are the top reason sportsmen stop
hunting and fishing. In an agency report to Congress (in 2003) found 35 million
acres of public land had inadequate access.

Target Practice
and Marksmanship Training Support Act: This section amends the Pittman-Robertson Act by adjusting the
funding limitations. This allows states more funds available for a longer
period of time for the creation and maintenance of shooting ranges. The bill
encourages federal land agencies to cooperate with state and local authorities
to maintain shooting ranges.

Polar Bear
Conservation and Fairness Act: This bill allows for the Secretary to authorize permits for
re-importation of legally harvested Polar Bears from approved populations in
Canada before the 2008 ban.

The Hunting,
Fishing and Recreational Shooting Protection Act: This section specifically excludes
ammo and fishing tackle from the Toxic Substances Control Act, leaving decisions
about tackle to State Fish and Game Agencies and the Fish and Wildlife Service,
who currently regulate ammo and tackle. The EPA has denied petitions to
regulate tackle and ammo under TSCA in 1994 and again in 2011. This codifies
that the EPA does not have the ability to regulate tackle. This includes a
savings clause for local, state and other federal regulations.

Bows Transported
through National Parks: This
provision clarifies the 2007 legislation, and will allow bows to be transported
across national park lands. Currently, firearms can be legally transported, but
not bows. This poses a practical problem for bow hunters who want to legally
hunt on Forest Service or BLM lands, but must cross National Park Service
Lands.

Billfish
Conservation Act: This
section prohibits the sale of Pacific-caught billfish, except in the State of
Hawaii, in order to respect traditional fisheries. Billfish (marlin, sailfish
and spearfish) populations have declined severely due to overfishing by
non-U.S. commercial fishing fleets who harvest billfish as by-catch while
targeting other species. More than two decades ago, the United States banned
the commercial sale and harvest of Atlantic-caught billfish. Catch-and-release
recreational angling for billfish generates many millions of dollars in
economic benefits to the U.S. economy each year.

Report on
Artificial Reefs in the Gulf of Mexico: This section requires report on the Idle Iron program in order to
develop more coordination between agencies and states. This will assure that
the interests of recreational fishermen are incorporated into the program.

Habitat
Conservation

National Fish
Habitat Conservation Act: This
section creates a national voluntary grant program to protect and improve fish
habitat by improving water quality and quantity across the nation. This section
builds on current partnerships to restore waterways and provides an organic
statue to authorize the work that the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently
performing into one program with an advisory board.

Migratory Bird
Habitat Investment and Enhancement Act: This section amends the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation
Stamp Act so that the Secretary of the Interior, beginning in 2013 for three
year periods, can set the amount to be collected for Federal Migratory Bird
Hunting and Conservation Stamps. It will require the Postal Service to collect
the amount established by the Secretary for each Stamp that is sold for a
hunting year.

Permanent
Electronic Duck Stamp Act: This
section would grant the Secretary of the Interior permanent authority to
authorize any state to issue electronic duck stamps. It also outlines
electronic duck stamp application requirements.

Joint Ventures
Authorization: This
section creates an organic statute for the Joint Ventures program housed in the
Fish and Wildlife Service. The Joint Venture program was established within the
Fish and Wildlife Service in 1987. This language allows FWS to provide
financial and technical assistance to support regional migratory bird conservation
partnerships, develop and implement plans for the protection and enhancement of
migratory bird populations to support migratory bird conservation.

Reauthorizations

North American
Wetlands Conservation Act Reauthorization (NAWCA): This section reauthorizes the North
American Wetlands Conservation Act for another five years. NAWCA is
a voluntary land-owner friendly initiative that uses incentives to provide
valuable matching grants that leverage federal dollars to protect habitat that
is critically important for migratory birds, such as ducks and other wildlife.
Over the last 20 years, NAWCA has completed over 2,000 conservation project to
protect 26.5 million acres of habitat. This voluntary program has over 4,500
partners and has leveraged nearly 3 dollars for every dollar spent by the
federal government.

Partners for Fish
and Wildlife: This provides
provision reauthorizes the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program through 2017.
This program works in a non-regulatory, cooperative fashion to help private
landowners with habitat restoration on their property. This cost-share program
focuses on improving wetland, riparian, in-stream, fish passage, sage-steppe,
grassland and aquatic habitats that provide benefits to migratory birds,
threatened or endangered species, and other sensitive and declining species.

Neotropical
Migratory Birds Reauthorization: This extends the authorization for the Neotropical Migratory Bird
Act which allows for voluntary conservation of critical bird habitat with 28
Projects in 26 Countries in 2012. This program leverages four dollars of
matching funds for each dollar spent by the federal government.

National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation Reauthorization: This section reauthorizes the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation (NFWF), a non-profit that preserves and restores our nation’s native
wildlife species and habitats. Created by Congress in 1984, NFWF directs public
conservation dollars to the most pressing environmental needs and matches those
investments with private funds. Since its establishment, NFWF has awarded over
11,600 grants to more than 4,000 organizations in the United States, investing
a total of $2 billion for conservation.

Multinational
Species Conservation Fund Reauthorization: Section reauthorizes appropriations to carry out the African
Elephant Conservation Act, the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act of 1994,
the Asian Elephant Conservation Act of 1997, The Marine Turtle Conservation Act
of 2003 and the Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000 for FY2012-FY2017. This will
also allow for a five year extension on the corresponding postal stamps.

Multinational
Species Conservation Funds Semipostal Stamp Reauthorization Act: This section would amend the
Multinational Species Conservation Funds Semipostal Stamp Act of 2010 to
require such stamps to be available for an additional four years; and provide
five versions depicting African or Asian elephants, a rhinoceros, a tiger, a
marine turtle or a great ape.

Federal Land
Transaction Facilitation Act Reauthorization (FTFLA): This section reauthorizes the BLM’s
authority to sell land to private land owners, counties, companies and others
for ranching, community development and various projects. This “Land for Land”
approach creates jobs and generates funding for BLM, USFS, NPS and USFWS to
acquire critical in-holdings from willing sellers. The sales revenue allows
agencies to acquire high priority lands with important wildlife habitat value
and recreational access for hunting and fishing.

Nutria
Eradication and Control Act: This
section would amend the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003